


Just a Magic Trick

by LeTempest



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen, Post Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-12
Updated: 2012-08-12
Packaged: 2017-11-11 23:06:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/483894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeTempest/pseuds/LeTempest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“How have you been John?” Clara asked, looking at him over the rim of her cup.<br/>“There are good days and bad days,” he said honestly. <br/>“How about today?”<br/>~~~<br/>John Watson deals with the death of his dearest friend. But he is still finding things are not always as they appear where Sherlock Holmes is concerned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just a Magic Trick

“Every great magic trick consists of three parts or acts. The first part is called "The Pledge". The magician shows you something ordinary: a deck of cards, a bird or a man. He shows you this object. Perhaps he asks you to inspect it to see if it is indeed real, unaltered, normal. But of course... it probably isn't. The second act is called "The Turn". The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary. Now you're looking for the secret... but you won't find it, because of course you're not really looking. You don't really want to know. You want to be fooled. But you wouldn't clap yet. Because making something disappear isn't enough; you have to bring it back. That's why every magic trick has a third act, the hardest part, the part we call "The Prestige"- The Prestige

 

“How have you been John?” Clara asked, looking at him over the rim of her cup.

John Watson turned back to his ex-sister in law, giving her a wane smile. He liked Clara, he always had. It had hit him hard when she and Harry had separated. Clara had been the one to support his decision to enlist, the one who’d sent him care packages and Christmas cards. He’d always felt rather bad that he’d been so far away when Clara and Harry had fallen out. But she’d stayed in contact with him, now more than ever. He was fairly sure she and Harry were even speaking again. Pity he had to be the reason.

He shrugged, looking down into his coffee.

“There are good days and bad days,” he said honestly. 

“How about today?”

John was quite for a moment.

“I’ve had worse,” he admitted, after a time.

A perfectly manicured hand laid gently over his own. He looked up at her. Clara had always been a pretty women, with her heather grey eyes and her kind smile. He could still remember the initial pang of jealousy he’d felt when Harry had brought her to met the family the first time. They were good friends now, and these days John was happy to have her. He and Harry were too much alike, they never had gotten on as well as they’d have liked to. Harry couldn’t see, couldn’t understand what it was like to watch someone destroy themselves right before your eyes. Clara, at least, had some inkling of what that felt like.

“No ones asking you to forget him John,” she said quietly and he could see the concern in her eyes. Compassionate and smart as she was, John had always been sure she’d make a hell of a doctor. 

“No,” he said, resting his chin on his knuckles as he looked at the window, “but they’re asking me to lie all the same. Some how, that feels worse. He was my friend. My best friend.” 

He could feel her frown.

“I know what I know and I saw what I saw, Clar,” John said, shaking his head, “They say he was an actor, someone Sherlock paid off...”

He closed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose.

“I saw a lot…over there…I saw men who were willing to kill innocents for no reason at all. I saw them shoot people, simply for protecting their families. I saw the bodies of little girls, little girls, burnt up, because they had failed to uphold someone else’s honor. And they were everywhere, on both sides. They could sneak up on you, out of no where, because they were so damn good at making you let your guard down. But once you’ve seen it, the real thing, you can’t be fooled by an actor. It’s not something some one can pretend. I’ve seen evil, Clara, and I saw it in Jim Moriarty. He IS real.”

He looked back out the window, waiting for the familiar spiel. It was always the same from everyone he spoke to, though there were varying levels of doubt and guilt in their voice. But the message was always there. Sherlock Holmes was a fraud and a magician, and John Watson, like so many others, had bought into the act. 

But Claire just gave his hand a comforting squeeze. 

“You have to do what you think it right John. He was your friend. But at least promise me you’ll take care of yourself,” she sighed, “I know you Watsons. A problem comes along and you always feel like you have to fix it. Always throwing yourselves so fully into something that it breaks you.”

John knew she was right. For the last six months, it seemed like he didn’t go a single morning without uncovering another dark circle or patch of grey. With the loss of Sherlock had come the loss of thrill, of the adrenaline thrumming danger that came with every new case. In it’s absence, the nightmares had returned; the shakes too. The limp had yet to present itself again; thank God for small graces. 

It was raining when they finally parted. John shook his head, of course it was raining. It always seemed to raining these days. The sky was mourning the lose of greatness, even if the world was not. 

John Watson trudged through the cold mist, head down as he walked into the wind. He shoved his hands deeper into his pockets, steeling himself against the cold. Because that was what John Watson did. He squared his shoulders, set his jaw, and soldiered on. He had always been the reasonable one, the reliable one, the one who could always be counted on to be the better man. 

John scowled, to himself. He was there to be better than now? Mycroft had once said that the two of them may as well have been one man. Sherlock the mind, John the heart. But what was the heart to do in the mind’s absence?

A shoulder bumped him, shaking him out of his thoughts. He half turned to see a young man, hood pulled up against the wind, raise a hand in apology. John gave a weak half smile and raised a hand in return.

He turned back to his path with a heavy sigh, stuffing his hands in his pockets once more…and closing around a small scrap of paper. 

John stopped in his tracks. His coat pocket had been empty a minute ago, save for his keys. Slowly, he pulled out the crumped not, ducking into the door frame of a shop as he unfolded it.

His hands began to shake as he read the words, scrawled in a sharp, familiar hand.

Miracles take time John, even for me. 

-SH

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own Sherlock or any of the characters. This was purely for fun.


End file.
